The old Guild A-50 archtops can be had for under $1k. I picked up a 1967 Guild A-50 for $800. It sounds great. If I could wave the magic wand, I'd make the fretboard a bit wider, but for the price it's a great guitar.

Here's a vid of me playing it. I had issues with my computer and had to do a Quicktime screen capture to get a file that would upload to YouTube and the audio suffered in that process.